Tolkien and the 'other' N-word ;)

[Cailín]

It doesn't have much to do with words I am actually learning, but Elvish resembles Irish and Welsh so closely sometimes, I am becoming more and more frustrated I cannot read it.

I always thought Elvish mostly resembled Finnish and Tolkien did not appreciate Celtic languages, but I guess I was wrong.

[Alcarillo]

Originally Posted by Cailín

I always thought Elvish mostly resembled Finnish and Tolkien did not appreciate Celtic languages, but I guess I was wrong.

Not entirely wrong, Cailín. Sindarin is the language that sounds like Welsh, and Quenya is the language that sounds like Finnish. They're both beautiful languages.

Before I read Tolkien I didn't know what argent, or sable, or chalcedony meant, and some words I hadn't even heard of before. Bilbo's song in Many Meetings had some wonderful words, like habergeon and carcanet and flammifer, great vocabulary-filling words that sound old and noble. I always thought that Tolkien's poetry included some of his loveliest language.

[littlemanpoet]

From Farmer Giles of Ham: blunderbuss

[Glirdan]

No new words on this end, besides all the Elven words that is. I'm normally a very good English student. I started reading at a young age and learned a lot of words then. I continued to read throughout the years and learned new words in those books. Now a days, I don't really don't know a word, and if I don't know a word, I try and match the definition to the context in which it is used. Or I ask my parents.

Originally posted by that crazy Balrog Gotmog
One word that I remember is Alas. I thought it sounded real cool...

Oh yes. One of my favorite words, along with retribution. Love them. I think alas would probably have been the only word I didn't know, but that was still a few years ago.

[Gothmog]

"That crazy balrog Gothmog"? So i'm not only villanious these days, I'm crazy too

About the finnish-elven tounge. I've lived close to Finland all my life and never really liked the way the language sounds. Sindarin and Quenya seems so much...Beautiful! No offence people of my neighbour in east, but your language sounds funny, but not beautiful.

One thing I've noticed: many of the pronouncation (sp?) that's supposed to be in elven tuonge, it comes natural to us swedes. Maybe to others too? Point is: it doesn't sound like in English which must have been hard for you anglo-speaking boys and girls in the beginning.

[Thinlómien]

Originally posted by that super-crazy balrog:
About the finnish-elven tounge. I've lived close to Finland all my life and never really liked the way the language sounds. Sindarin and Quenya seems so much...Beautiful! No offence people of my neighbour in east, but your language sounds funny, but not beautiful.

You should know how much we love swedish in Finland... As a Finn, I can say that quenya doesn't sound that familiar to me - there are many different things and written quenya doesn't resemble even that much because it has fg. 'c' instead of 'k'. Still, some words have clearly Finnish roots, tië is quenya and means 'path'. In finnish 'tie' (pronounced exactly the same way as the previous) means 'road'. I don't think this is a coincidence.

And back to the topic. The beautiful world 'alas' has always amused me since it means 'down' in Finnish...

[Aiwendil]

Thinlomien wrote:

As a Finn, I can say that quenya doesn't sound that familiar to me - there are many different things and written quenya doesn't resemble even that much because it has fg. 'c' instead of 'k'.

Actually, for a long time Tolkien did use "k" instead of "c" in Quenya (and Sindarin). Only around the time of the completion of LotR (or perhaps around its publication; I can't recall) did he switch to the Latinized orthography.

I must say that to me (whose native tongue is neither Finnish nor Quenya) the two languages do seem quite similar in phonology.

To keep this post from being wholly off-topic - it occurs to me that I didn't know the word "shibboleth" before reading HoMe XII.